Lighting equipment list -

are the 575 hmis in stock? I notice you guys get sold our reasonably quickly, and i prefer to not wait 3 months at a time for restocking :P.

Do you offer bulbs with them as well?

I think i will pick up the 4x55 though. One or two, depends on what ican afford, but i think having that one hmi will do wonders.

if i understand correctly, the 575 hmi will put out 2400 watts of tunsgten equivalent. This term always confuses me. Does this mean ill be shooting out 2400 watts of 5500 kelvin light? Or would it be as if i were shooting with a 2400 watt tunsgten light, with a full CTB gel on it, which would give me roughly 600 watts of daylight since it cuts 2 stops. ?
 
Yes 575w puts out equivalent of 2400w tungsten (or so) at 3200K but the color is 6000K if using the normal Osram HMI HR bulb. Generally, people don't list equivalents in terms of whether a gel was on the light.
 
muroshi said:
wow, so you only could use the 575 for close up stuff outside?
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A 575w fresnel HMI is largely useless outside, yes. A 575W PAR might have enough punch to get something done, but a 575w fresnel isn't enough to compete with the sun. You'll get stronger performance from a silver reflector. A 575w HMI is useful for a closeup on an overcast day (when there isn't any sun to bounce, and you want to create an edge or some definition).

I've got a couple of 575w fresnels, they're probably my least-used lights.
 
Thanks Barry,

Good information. So that means for me more or less renting. Therefore I probably will focus on thungsten lights.
 
Barry, would you consider giving a rundown of what lighting fixtures you have and how useful they are to you? I'd love to know that!
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You'd probably be disappointed; I don't have too much stuff, just what I need to do small projects, training DVDs, etc. For anything large I'd rent. When I could get a 10-ton grip & lighting truck for $500/day, it didn't make that much sense to buy a lot of high-power high-buck stuff. I just got a few things to use on small commercials and corporate films, I have about a half ton kit of grip & lighting gear.

The main lights that get used on any gig are the two Lowel CaseLite 4's, fluorescent 4-bank fixtures. Daylight and tungsten tubes, fairly easy setup, instant soft light. These are my go-to fixtures and my main key lights. Bought mainly for the small size, they're tiny compared to a Kino 4-bank but they're heavy.

I've also got a set of Lowel Scandles, which found quite a bit of use on "Siren"; seemed we used those "dog collar" lights on most every setup and I also use 'em to fill in lighting on a greenscreen. Got 'em used off ebay, and been moderately pleased with 'em. They're weird, but as a relatively portable two-light kit they're all right. We even used 'em outdoors as a little tiny bit of daylight fill and they actually sort of worked a little for that.

I also have a couple of Cool Lights 655s, six-lamp "walls of light" that I got for greenscreen lighting.

When used for faces, fluo 4-banks aren't necessarily soft enough or large enough to give that good exquisite softlight look; I'll frequently stretch out the barn doors and hang a sheet of diffusion off it to increase the size of the source and soften it up that extra bit to get that flattering look.

I've also got a bunch of tungsten fresnels; nothing beats a good hard light for versatility. Various sizes from 2k down to 250w, with all the miscellaneous support stuff like Chimera softboxes and scrims and flags and nets and silks. I've also just ordered a Cool Lights 150w tungsten fresnel but it hasn't arrived yet, if I like it I'll probably get three more; I just love spot/accent lighting. My existing fresnels are various brands including Mole, Bardwell & McAllister, Lowel and Britek. The Mole 2K rarely gets used, it's too much power draw for many household circuits and it's just preposterously large for loading up in the back of the car; I could take four 650w heads in the same amount of space. I got a 1K lamp for the 2K to solve the power issue, and it does put out a lovely texture of light, but it requires a Junior stand and that just adds to the bulk; I think I've used it more as a prop than an actual working fixture! :)

I find myself using more fluo than tungsten nowadays, but nothing takes the place of a good hard light. I also shy towards daylight lighting rather than tungsten. That's why I've ordered a Cool Lights 150w HMI, to see if it can work as a daylight-colored substitute for tungsten fresnels. I'm also going to pick up some PAR fixtures; nothing throws light over distance like a PAR.

I've got a small amount of Lowel tungsten; stuff like a 250w pro-light and some open-face v-lights. V-lights are good for bouncing into a ceiling but not much else; the pro-light is cute for a tiny mount-anywhere fixture. Not a Dedo, but not as expensive as a Dedo. The pro-light is one of my favorite lowel fixtures, but there appear to be much better choices now; I'm hoping the cool lights 150w tungsten fresnel meets my expectations because it's less expensive than the pro, less power draw, and it has an actual fresnel lens instead of the open-face nature of the pro-light.

For HMI I'm currently limping along with a couple of 575W HMI Fresnels, they get occasional use outdoors. They're mostly useful outdoors on overcast days; I love the soft even light of an overcast sky but not without an edge somewhere to give some shape and definition. On a sunny day they're not enough to be much good; used 'em to fill in the car interior on Zombie Hunter but I had to literally mount them on the hood of the truck to get enough "oomph" out of 'em. I bought a bunch of C+ stands for portability, was able to use the turtle base separately as a mini lightstand to mount the HMIs up on the hood. Mac used the HMIs a lot on Little Mouth To Feed and Unawakening, but always at night -- they're good for night work. Had a 1200W HMI fresnel, but the ballast gave out during filming Siren. I sold it cheap to Vidled and he got it working again. I've also ordered a Cool Lights 150w HMI fresnel to experiment with. The 575w fresnels work okay indoors, to simulate daylight or to provide a good strong hard light to work with the daylight fluorescents. But they're big and heavy and the ballasts are majorly heavy.

I had a couple of Britek DayPhoto HMI fixtures... they were mediocre. Very green color tint, but they were also open-face non-focusable fixtures. What's the point? About the only thing you could do with 'em was to put a softbox in front of 'em, and for soft I'd rather use a fluo anyway so -- sold those off.

If I had it to do over again I wouldn't bother with 575w HMI fresnels, I'd get 1200W HMI PARs. Much more useful in more circumstances, although of course they're a lot more expensive too. Probably cross the line to where renting makes a lot more sense. But the 1200W HMI PAR is the ideal light fixture -- insane amounts of output, reasonable power draw that can be run off of a normal household circuit, incredible reach, and you can put in a fresnel lens or put it in a softbox if you want. (of course, I'm talking about units that can be run off of a household circuit or a generator here; obviously a 1200w doesn't put out an "insane" amount of light when compared to a 12K or 18K!) But you could see the effect of a 1200w PAR on a building outside; you won't make it glow but you could at least have an effect. For anything more you'll need to rent a 6k or 12k or 18k and an appropriate power solution to go with it (like Obin's new 120,000 watt generator!)

I'm a big fan of fluorescent, LED, and HMI. Tungsten has a dwindling place in my view; it's cheap and hard but the heat and power draw cause issues. Using a 1K tungsten in a softbox is crazy now when you can get an affordable 4-bank fluo and only use 220w and generate so much less heat. Power wrangling is sooooo much easier when lighting with flo's, so much more of an issue when using tungsten. But the tungsten hard look is gorgeous in the right circumstances, so I'm really hoping for a good hardlight alternative. The Cool Lights HMI $399 150w (650w equiv) metal halide looks like a promising unit, I hope it works and is as rugged and useful as a regular Arri/Mole/B&M tungsten fixture. If it is, I could see picking up a few of those. At that point, tungsten fixtures in my "arsenal" would be mainly for use on dimmers; anything else could be accomplished with daylight/HMI/fluo.

When I was starting out I had a bunch of other stuff, starter stuff like a Smith Victor set of "brooder lamps" and such; when I moved I gave all that stuff to Hudson.

Non-light fixtures are just as important though; I've got a 6 x 6 butterfly set with silk, black, gold & white, a couple of shiny board reflectors, a "road rags" set, gazillions of c-stands in all sorts of sizes (really liking these little 20" stands I have); and lots of mafers and heads and arms and nail-on plates and dimmers and gels and such. Black wrap rules my universe. The ability to generate light is maybe 20% of the total job of lighting; *controlling* that light is the other 80%.
 
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wow Barry that's a great post - really nice to see a "small" light kit listed out here. I too am curious about the coollights 150W HMI. Most of my work is interviews with non professional talent (ceo's, vp's etc) and they arent really into the heat from tungsten. I've got a 2 bank coolights fixture on the way to do some travelling interview work with and see how it works out. Hoping to slowly convert the lowell tungsten kit we have at work to my own flo/hmi/led kit for interviews and small corporate pieces. When you get a chance to work with your new coollights fixtures, please do post a review.
 
I'm just beginning to learn about lighting technique and to build my "arsenal" so that was indeed a very useful post, Barry. Could you (or anyone else, really) point me toward a few books and/or sites that would help me learn the other 80%--controlling the light?
Thanks again.
 
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Cool...

I'll be watching

Also, what about some general tutorials on cinematography that cover aperture, focal lengths, shutter speed... you know... the good stuff that are universals. :D
 
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